A Thai anti-smoking advert, which shows children going up to adults smoking in the street and asking for a cigarette, has gone viral. The adults lecture the kids on not smoking. Then the child hands them a flyer, which asks: "You worry about me. But why not about yourself?" All the adults – not actors – throw away their cigarettes.

The same question could be asked in reference to the Home Office leaflet on body image that invites parents to show children photographs of Britney Spears and Keira Knightley before and after being airbrushed. Dr Katherine Rake, chief executive of the Family and Parenting Institute, says: "There is widespread concern about the way children are targeted by images that undermine their sense of self-worth."

Maybe the way to get children to feel under less pressure is to get adults to feel under less pressure. The message is: "We adults like to distribute impossible images of humans because other adults want to see them. But you kids should know better than to fall for our psychologically destructive grown-up tricks."